LET
us rather consider the
proceedings of the swarm the
apiarist shall have gathered into his hive. And first of all let us not
be
forgetful of the sacrifice these fifty thousand virgins have made, who,
as
Ronsard sings,

"In a little body bear so true a
heart, --"

and let us, yet once again, admire
the courage
with
which they begin life
anew in the desert whereon they have fallen. They have forgotten the
splendour
and wealth of their native city, where existence had been so admirably
organised
and certain, where the essence of every flower reminiscent of sunshine
had
enabled them to smile at the menace of winter. There, asleep in the
depths
of their cradles, they have left thousands and thousands of daughters,
whom
they never again will see. They have abandoned, not only the enormous
treasure
of pollen and propolis they had gathered together, but also more than
120
pounds of honey; a quantity representing more than twelve times the
entire
weight of the population, and close on 600,000 times that of the
individual
bee. To man this would mean 42,000 tons of provisions, a vast fleet of
mighty
ships laden with nourishment more precious than any known to us; for to
the
bee honey is a kind of liquid life, a species of chyle that is at once
assimilated, with almost no waste whatever.

Here, in the new abode, there
is
nothing; not a drop
of honey, not a morsel of wax; neither guiding-mark nor point of
support.
There is only the dreary emptiness of an enormous monument that has
nothing
but sides and roof. Within the smooth and rounded walls there only is
darkness;
and the enormous arch above rears itself over nothingness. But useless
regrets
are unknown to the bee; or in any event it does not allow them to
hinder
its action. Far from being cast down by an ordeal before which every
other
courage would succumb, it displays greater ardour than ever. Scarcely
has
the hive been set in its place, or the disorder allayed that ensued on
the
bees' tumultuous fall, when we behold the clearest, most unexpected
division
in that entangled mass. The greater portion, forming in solid columns,
like
an army obeying a definite order, will proceed to climb the vertical
walls
of the hive. The cupola reached, the first to arrive will cling with
the
claws of their anterior legs, those that follow hang on to the first,
and
so in succession, until long chains have been formed that serve as a
bridge
to the crowd that rises and rises. And, by slow degrees, these chains,
as
their number increases, supporting each other and incessantly
interweaving,
become garlands which, in their turn, the uninterrupted and constant
ascension
transforms into a thick, triangular curtain, or rather a kind of
compact
and inverted cone, whose apex attains the summit of the cupola, while
its
widening base descends to a half, or two-thirds, of the entire height
of
the hive. And then, the last bee that an inward voice has impelled to
form
part of this group having added itself to the curtain suspended in
darkness,
the ascension ceases; all movement slowly dies away in the dome; and,
for
long hours, this strange inverted cone will wait, in a silence that
almost
seems awful, in a stillness one might regard as religious, for the
mystery
of wax to appear.

In
the meantime the rest of
the
bees those, that is,
that remained down below in the hive-- have shown not the slightest
desire
to join the others aloft, and pay no heed to the formation of the
marvellous
curtain on whose folds a magical gift is soon to descend. They are
satisfied
to examine the edifice and undertake the necessary labours. They
carefully
sweep the floor, and remove, one by one, twigs, grains of sand, and
dead
leaves; for the bees are almost fanatically cleanly, and when, in the
depths
of winter, severe frosts retard too long what apiarists term their
"flight
of cleanliness," rather than sully the hive they will perish by
thousands
of a terrible bowel-disease. The males alone are incurably careless,
and
will impudently bestrew the surface of the comb with their droppings,
which
the workers are obliged to sweep as they hasten behind them.

The
cleaning over, the bees
of the
profane group that
form no part of the cone suspended in a sort of ecstasy, set to work
minutely
to survey the lower circumference of the common dwelling. Every crevice
is
passed in review, and filled, covered over with propolis; and the
varnishing
of the walls is begun, from top to bottom. Guards are appointed to take
their
stand at the gate; and very soon a certain number of workers will go to
the
fields and return with their burden of pollen.

[41]

Before raising the folds of
the
mysterious curtain beneath
whose shelter are laid the veritable foundations of the home, let us
endeavour
to form some conception of the sureness of vision, the accurate
calculation
and industry our little people of emigrants will be called to display
in
order to adapt this new dwelling to their requirements. In the void
round
about them they must lay the plans for their city, and logically mark
out
the site of the edifices that must be erected as economically and
quickly
as possible, for the queen, eager to lay, already is scattering her
eggs
on the ground. And in this labyrinth of complicated buildings, so far
existing
only in imagination, laws of ventilation must be considered, of
stability,
solidity; resistance of the wax must not be lost sight of, or the
nature
of the food to be stored, or the habits of the queen; ready access must
be
contrived to all parts, and careful attention be given to the
distribution
of stores and houses, passages and streets,--this however is in some
measure
pre-established, the plan already arrived at being organically the
best,--and
there are countless problems besides, whose enumeration would take too
long.

Now,
the form of the hive
that man
offers to the bee
knows infinite variety, from the hollow tree or earthenware vessel
still
obtaining in Asia and Africa, and the familiar bell-shaped
constructions
of straw which we find in our farmers' kitchen-gardens or beneath their
windows,
lost beneath masses of sunflowers, phlox, and hollyhock, to what may
really
be termed the factory of the model apiarist of today. An edifice, this,
that
can contain more than three hundred pounds of honey, in three or four
stories
of superposed combs enclosed in a frame which permits of their being
removed
and handled, of the harvest being extracted -through centrifugal force
by
means of a turbine, and of their being then restored to their place
like
a book in a well-ordered library.

And
one fine day the industry
or
caprice of man will
install a docile swarm in one of these disconcerting abodes. And there
the
little insect is expected to learn its bearings, to find its way, to
establish
its home; to modify the seemingly unchangeable plans dictated by the
nature
of things. In this unfamiliar place it is required to determine the
site
of the winter storehouses, that must not extend beyond the zone of heat
that
issues from the half-numbed inhabitants; it must divine the exact point
where
the brood-cells shall concentrate, under penalty of disaster should
these
be too high or too low, too near to or far from the door. The swarm, it
may
be, has just left the trunk of a fallen tree, containing one long,
narrow,
depressed, horizontal gallery; and it finds itself now in a
tower-shaped
edifice, whose roof is lost in gloom. Or, to take a case that is more
usual,
perhaps, and one that will give some idea of the surprise habitually in
store
for the bees: after having lived for centuries past beneath the straw
dome
of our village hives, they are suddenly transplanted to a species of
mighty
cupboard, or chest, three or four times as large as the place of their
birth;
and installed in the midst of a confused scaffolding of superposed
frames,
some running parallel to the entrance and some perpendicular; the whole
forming
a bewildering network that obscures the surfaces of their dwelling.

[42]

And
yet, for all this, there
exists
not a single instance
of a swarm refusing its duty, or allowing itself to be baffled or
discouraged
by the strangeness of its surroundings, except only in the case of the
new
dwelling being absolutely uninhabitable, or impregnated with evil
odours.
And even then the bees will not be disheartened or bewildered; even
then
they will not abandon their mission. The swarm will simply forsake the
inhospitable abode, to seek better fortune some little distance away.
And
similarly it can never be said of them that they can be induced to
undertake
any illogical or foolish task. Their common-sense has never been known
to
fail them; they have never, at a loss for definite decision, erected at
haphazard
structures of a wild or heterogeneous nature. Though you place the
swarm
in a sphere, a cube, or a pyramid, in an oval or polygonal basket, you
will
find, on visiting the bees a few days later, that if this strange
assembly
of little independent intellects has accepted the new abode, they will
at
once, and unhesitatingly and unanimously have known how to select the
most
favourable, often humanly speaking the only possible spot in this
absurd
habitation, in pursuance of a method whose principles may appear
inflexible,
but whose results are strikingly vivid.

When
installed in one of the
huge
factories, bristling
with frames, that we mentioned just now, these frames will interest
them
only to the extent in which they provide them with a basis or point of
departure
for their combs; and they very naturally pay not the slightest heed to
the
desires or intentions of man. But if the apiarist have taken the
precaution
of surrounding the upper lath of some of these frames with a narrow
fillet
of wax, they will be quick to perceive the advantage this tempting
offer
presents, and will carefully extract the fillet, using their own wax as
solder,
and will prolong the comb in accordance with the indicated plan.
Similarly--and
the case is frequent in modern apiculture- if all the frames of the
hive
into which the bees have been gathered be covered from top to bottom
with
leaves of foundation-wax, they will not waste time in erecting
buildings
across or beside these, or in producing useless wax, but, finding that
the
work is already half finished, they will be satisfied to deepen and
lengthen
each of the cells designed in the leaf, carefully rectifying these
where
there is the slightest deviation from the strictest vertical.
Proceeding
in this fashion, therefore, they will possess in a week a city as
luxurious
and well-constructed as the one they have quitted; whereas, had they
been
thrown on their own resources, it would have taken them two or three
months
to construct so great a profusion of dwellings and storehouses of
shining
wax.

[43 ]

This
power of appropriation
may
well be considered to
overstep the limit of instinct; and indeed there can be nothing more
arbitrary
than the distinction we draw between instinct and intelligence properly
so-called. Sir John Lubbock, whose observations on ants, bees, and
wasps
are so interesting and so personal, is reluctant to credit the bee,
from
the moment it forsakes the routine of its habitual labour, with any
power
of discernment or reasoning. This attitude of his may be due in some
measure
to an unconscious bias in favour of the ants, whose ways he has more
specially
noted; for the entomologist is always inclined to regard that insect as
the
more intelligent to which he has more particularly devoted himself, and
we
have to be on our guard against this little personal predilection. As a
proof
of his theory, Sir john cites as an instance an experiment within the
reach
of all. If you place in a bottle half a dozen bees and the same number
of
flies, and lay the bottle down horizontally, with its base to the
window,
you will find that the bees will persist, till they die of exhaustion
or
hunger, in their endeavour to discover an issue through the glass;
while
the flies, in less than two minutes, will all have sallied forth
through
the neck on the opposite side. From this Sir John Lubbock concludes
that
the intelligence of the bee is exceedingly limited, and that the fly
shows
far greater skill in extricating itself from a difficulty, and finding
its
way. This conclusion, however, would not seem altogether flawless. Turn
the
transparent sphere twenty times, if you will, holding now the base, now
the
neck, to the window, and you will find that the bees will turn twenty
times
with it, so as always to face the light. It is their love of the light,
it
is their very intelligence, that is their undoing in this experiment of
the
English savant. They evidently imagine that the issue from every prison
must
be there where the light shines clearest; and they act in accordance,
and
persist in too logical action. To them glass is a supernatural mystery
they
never have met with in nature; they have had no experience of this
suddenly
impenetrable atmosphere; and, the greater their intelligence, the more
inadmissible, more incomprehensible, will the strange obstacle appear.
Whereas
the featherbrained flies, careless of logic as of the enigma of
crystal,
disregarding the call of the light, flutter wildly hither and thither,
and,
meeting here the good fortune that often waits on the simple, who find
salvation
there where the wiser will perish, necessarily end by discovering the
friendly
opening that restores their liberty to them.

The
same naturalist cites yet
another proof of the bees'
lack of intelligence, and discovers it in the following quotation from
the
great American apiarist, the venerable and paternal Langstroth :--

''As
the fly was not intended
to
banquet on blossoms,
but on substances in which it might easily be drowned, it cautiously
alights
on the edge of any vessel containing liquid food, and warily helps
itself;
while the poor bee, plunging in headlong, speedily perishes. The sad
fate
of their unfortunate companions does not in the least deter others who
approach
the tempting lure from madly alighting on the bodies of the dying and
the
dead, to share the same miserable end. No one can understand the extent
of
their infatuation until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed by
myriads
of hungry bees. I have seen thousands strained out from the syrups in
which
they had perished; thousands more alighting even on the boiling sweets;
the
floors covered and windows darkened with bees, some crawling, others
flying,
and others still so completely besmeared as to be able neither to crawl
nor
to fly-- not one in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoils, and
yet
the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers."

This, however, seems to me no
more
conclusive than might
be the spectacle of a battlefield, or of the ravages of alcoholism, to
a
superhuman observer bent on establishing the limits of human
understanding.
Indeed, less so, perhaps; for the situation of the bee, when compared
with
our own, is strange in this world. It was intended to live in the midst
of
an indifferent and unconscious nature, and not by the side of an
extraordinary
being who is forever disturbing the most constant laws, and producing
grandiose,
inexplicable phenomena. In the natural order of things, in the
monotonous
life of the forest, the madness Langstroth describes would be possible
only
were some accident suddenly to destroy a hive full of honey. But in
this
case, even, there would be no fatal glass, no boiling sugar or cloying
syrup;
no death or danger, therefore, other than that to which every animal is
exposed
while seeking its prey.

Should we be more successful
than
they in preserving
our presence of mind if some strange power were at every step to
ensnare
our reason? Let us not be too hasty in condemning the bees for the
folly
whereof we are the authors, or in deriding their intellect, which is as
poorly
equipped to foil our artifices as our own would be to foil those of
some
superior creature unknown to us to-day, but on that account not
impossible.
None such being known at present, we conclude that we stand on the
topmost
pinnacle of life on this earth; but this belief, after all, is by no
means
infallible. I am not assuming that when our actions are unreasonable,
or
contemptible, we merely fall into the snares that such a creature has
laid;
though it is not inconceivable that this should one day be proved true.
On
the other hand, it cannot be wise to deny intelligence to the bee
because
it has not yet succeeded in distinguishing us from the great ape or the
bear.
It is certain that there are, in us and about us, influences and powers
no
less dissimilar whose distinction escapes us as readily.

And
finally, to end this
apology,
wherein I seem somewhat
to have fallen into the error I laid to Sir John Lubbock's charge, does
not
the capacity for folly so great in itself argue intelligence? For thus
it
is ever in the uncertain domain of the intellect, apparently the most
vacillating
and precarious condition of matter. The same light that falls on the
intellect
falls also on passion, whereof none can tell whether it be the smoke of
the
flame or the wick. In the case above it has not been mere animal desire
to
gorge themselves with honey that has urged on the bees. They could do
this
at their leisure in the store-rooms at home. Watch them in an analogous
circumstance; follow them; you will see that, as soon as their sac is
filled,
they will return to the hive and add their spoil to the general store;
and
visit the marvellous vintage, and leave it, perhaps thirty times in an
hour.
Their admirable labours, therefore, are inspired by a single desire:
zeal
to bring as much wealth as they can to the home of their sisters, which
is
also the home of thefuture. When we discover a cause as disinterested
for
the follies of men, we are apt to call them by another name.

[44]

However, the whole truth must
be
told. In the midst of
the marvels of their industry, their policy, their sacrifice, one thing
exists
that must always check and weaken our admiration; and this is the
indifference
with which they regard the misfortunes or death of their comrades.
There
is a strange duality in the character of the bee. In the heart of the
hive
all help and love each other. They are as united as the good thoughts
that
dwell in the same soul. Wound one of them, and a thousand will
sacrifice
themselves to avenge its injury. But outside the hive they no longer
recognise
each other. Mutilate them, crush them,--or rather, do nothing of the
kind;
it would be a useless cruelty, for the fact is established beyond any
doubt,--but
were you to mutilate, or crush, on a piece of comb placed a few steps
from
their dwelling, twenty or thirty bees that have all issued from the
same
hive, those you have left untouched will not even turn their heads.
With
their tongue, fantastic as a Chinese weapon, they will tranquilly
continue
to absorb the liquid they hold more precious than life, heedless of the
agony
whose last gestures almost are touching them, of the cries of distress
that
arise all around. And when the comb is empty, so great is their anxiety
that
nothing shall be lost, that their eagerness to gather the honey which
clings
to the victims will induce them tranquilly to climb over dead and
dying,
unmoved by the presence of the first and never dreaming of helping the
others.
In this case, therefore, they have no notion of the danger they run,
seeing
that they are wholly untroubled by the death that is scattered about
them,
and they have not the slightest sense of solidarity or pity. As regards
the
danger, the explanation lies ready to hand; the bees know not the
meaning
of fear, and, with the exception only of smoke, are afraid of nothing
in
the world. Outside the hive, they display extreme condescension and
forbearance.
They will avoid whatever disturbs them, and affect to ignore its
existence,
so long as it come not too close; as though aware that this universe
belongs
to all, that each one has his place there, and must needs be discreet
and
peaceful. But beneath this indulgence is quietly hidden a heart so sure
of
itself that it never dreams of protesting. If they are threatened, they
will
alter their course, but never attempt to escape. In the hive, however,
they
will not confine themselves to this passive ignoring of peril. They
will
spring with incredible fury on any living thing, ant or lion or man,
that
dares to profane the sacred ark. This we may term anger, ridiculous
obstinacy,
or heroism, according as our mind be disposed.

But
of their want of
solidarity
outside the hive, and
even of sympathy within it, I can find nothing to say. Are we to
believe
that each form of intellect possesses its own strange limitation, and
that
the tiny flame which with so much difficulty at last burns its way
through
inert matter and issues forth from the brain, is still so uncertain
that
if it illumine one point more strongly the others are forced into
blacker
darkness? Here we find that the bees (or nature acting within them)
have
organised work in common, the love and cult of the future, in a manner
more
perfect than can elsewhere be discovered. Is it for this reason that
they
have lost sight of all the rest? They give their love to what lies
ahead
of them; we bestow ours on what is around. And we who love here,
perhaps,
have no love left for what is beyond. Nothing varies so much as the
direction
of pity or charity. We ourselves should formerly have been far less
shocked
than we are to-day at the insensibility of the bees; and to many an
ancient
people such conduct would not have seemed blameworthy. And further, can
we
tell how many of the things that we do would shock a being who might be
watching
us as we watch the bees?